GANGS HAVE MADE DUBLIN 'LIKE CHICAGO IN THE 1920S'

Gangland wars have turned Dublin into the Chicago of the 21st
century, a TD and chairman of a drugs task force in the Irish capital
said last night.

Labour TD Joe Costello also revealed that a preliminary study by the
Inner City Drugs Task Force has found that a majority of drug dealers
arrested on serious offences were out on bail.

Costello made his remarks following two more gangland-related murders
in north Dublin this weekend. Gardai have launched a murder
investigation following the fatal shooting of a 33-year-old man in
Finglas early yesterday. The victim was named as Trevor Walsh, from
Valley Park Road in Finglas. He had been serving a three-year prison
sentence for possession of firearms, but was let out on temporary
release on Thursday.

The attack, which happened at about 12.20am outside a house on the
Kippure Park estate, was the second fatal shooting in the capital in 24 hours.

A gunman approached the victim outside a house in the estate and shot
him in the neck and chest, before fleeing the scene on a bicycle. It
is understood that the killer used an automatic pistol. Walsh was
taken to Blanchardstown Hospital, but was pronounced dead at 1am.

The victim was associated with the late John Daly, a Dublin criminal
who was shot dead last October. Walsh had been a member of a gang
which specialised in importing drugs and armed robberies in the city.

It is not clear whether yesterday morning's attack was connected to
the shooting of a man in Coolock, north Dublin, on Friday afternoon.
The man, named locally as 34-year-old Anthony Foster, was killed with
a shotgun as he left a top-floor apartment at Cromcastle Court.
Commenting on the latest gang-related shooting, Costello, who
represents inner-city Dublin in the Dail, said there was no coherent
plan to counter the rising number of killings.

'Dublin now resembles Chicago in the Roaring Twenties, when the
gangsters were out of control,' he said. 'There is no joined-up
strategy to fight these gangs, either at a national or international
level. All of our drugs are imported, mostly by sea along Ireland's
coastline, yet we have no proper network with our fellow Europeans to
patrol the seaboard. We don't have enough boats, planes or
helicopters to intercept the smuggling networks,' he said.

Over the last three years there have been more than a dozen killings
in north Dublin alone related to rival drugs gangs. Costello added
that, while the Irish government talks tough in regard to Ireland's
gangland wars, the system remained loaded in the criminals' favour.
'We have found that the overwhelming majority of people arrested on
serious drug offences almost all get bail and are back on the
streets. The turf wars over who controls drug supplies in certain
parts of Dublin have been fuelled by the easy availability of
firearms and now explosives.'

Costello said the expertise of retired republican paramilitaries had
been harnessed to arm and train the city's criminal gangs.